are some forms of power unethical? if power is so

CHAPTER 3 Key Concepts in Political Science 58

DEBATES IN THE STUDY OF POWER

Are Some Forms of Power Unethical?

Is violence an acceptable means of force? Is violence ethical if undertaken by a state’s military but not by a nonstate organization? Is manipulation unethical insofar as the power involved is disguised? Is exchange more ethical than other forms of power because it offers desired items to those having power exercised over them? These questions have divided students of politics for centuries.

If Power Is So Complicated, How Can We Identify It Clearly Enough to Study It Scientifi cally?

As previously noted, empirical manifestations of power are often blended, insofar as different types of power can be used simultaneously. An interest group can use a combination of force and persuasion over its members; a public offi cial can blend manipulation and persuasion in his or her campaign. This complicates the study of power because it makes it very diffi cult to operationalize exactly which type of power is in use at any given time during which power types are blended. In addition, power is diffi cult to study because amounts of power are diffi cult to measure with the precision of science. If one country changes the will of a second country using exchange and persuasion, how much power was represented by exchange and how much by persuasion? Such measurements are often very diffi cult to determine.

Is Power Escapable?

Imagine all the ways in which power can be exercised over you. Force, persuasion, manipulation, and exchange are ever-present options for individuals, groups, and the government to use over you. Have you ever been free of power? Such questions have prompted some social scientists and philosophers to assert that power may be so pervasive that it is virtually inescapable. Other scholars have argued that power is escapable, in that we can select how we respond to different power relations. We can choose resistance or compliance. This possibility of choice makes us free, it is argued: if not free of encountering power, at least, free in taking responsibility for how we relate to power.35 Indeed, you could argue that the pervasiveness of power contributes to freedom in that each power type can be used for liberation as well as coercion. Force, persuasion, manipulation, and exchange can be used by the strong to overcome the weak, but each one can also be used by the weak to fend off the strong.

STATES

On January 12, 2010, the most severe earthquake to strike the region in 200 years destroyed much of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince. Within days, the Haitian government estimated that 150,000 people had died. Government buildings were damaged, many streets were impassable, gasoline was scarce, phone service was unreliable, and health care professionals were overwhelmed. The Haitian government’s capacity to function was severely impaired, as many government offi cials had no buildings in which to work—or, no electricity in the buildings still standing—and were being assisted by U.S. troops and UN peacekeepers. Desperate for supplies of international aid,

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States 59

by January 20, Haiti had turned over temporary but nonetheless offi cial control of the Port-au-Prince airport to the United States. On January 21, Haiti’s fi rst lady felt compelled to assure citizens that the Haitian state had not lost sovereignty, that is, the actual ability to make and enforce its own rules inside its own borders.36 Sovereignty is a central concept in the study of states. A state—whether that of Haiti or the United States—is an organization that has a number of political functions and tasks, including providing security, extracting revenues, and forming rules for resolving disputes and allocating resources within the boundaries of the territory in which it exercises jurisdiction.

That is, states consist of government offi ces, which have the tasks of providing the ultimate, or primary, security, extraction processes, and rule making within a territory. In providing security, states may create large military establishments or small ones, seek membership in international treaty organizations, or pursue isolationism. In funding their operations through extraction, states may create tax structures to fund expansive or limited social welfare programs. In setting the ultimate rules of confl ict resolution, states may create court systems with judicial review or may reject judicial review; states may allow for or ban gun ownership by private citizens, just as states may legalize or prohibit the organization of private security forces (such as militias). In setting the rules for resource allocation, states may create distribution systems that are capitalist, socialist, or a combination of the two. In enforcing its rules over the territory within its borders, a state may rely primarily on force (physical aggression against its own population), persuasion (the issuance of decrees or laws), manipulation (propaganda), or exchange (fostering a growing economy with a high standard of living in order to “buy” acquiescence from its citizens).

States possess characteristics both similar and dissimilar to other types of organi-zations. For example, families and voluntary associations may also make rules, collect extractions and contributions (such as chores or dues), and offer secure environments for their members. What makes a state unique relative to other organizations are the ultimate and primary claims a state makes relative to its rules, its processes of extraction, and its procedures for security. Although a voluntary association may impose rules of membership on its members, the rules must conform to the rules (laws and policies) of the state; if not, the state can penalize the association with violent force.37

Concept Summary

Box 3.5 STATES: DEFINITION AND CHARACTERISTICS

• States are organizations claiming ultimate rule-setting and rule-enforcing authority within their borders.

• States may be organized as unitary, federal, or confederal systems.• Sovereignty is the actual ability of states to act as ultimate rule-making

and rule-enforcing organizations.• Legitimacy is the belief by citizens that the state operating over them

is proper.

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States may be organized in a variety of ways. Unitary states concentrate power at the central, or national, level. The United Kingdom, France, China, and Japan are examples of unitary states. Federal states create different divisions and levels of government and divide power among those divisions and levels. The United States is a federal state, with power accorded to offi ces at three levels: national or federal offi ces, state offi ces, and local offi ces. Germany, India, Canada, Brazil, and Mexico also have federal systems.

In addition to federal and unitary arrangements, states also have the option of a confederal type of organization, with power decentralized and held primarily or exclusively by local offi ces. This type of state existed briefl y in the United States prior to the ratifi cation of the U.S. Constitution. In 1781, the Articles of Confederation established a confederation in which states had supreme power and a central governing power was virtually nonexistent, in that there was no central executive, no central judiciary, and only a weak central legislature. Confederalism was replaced by federalism when the U.S. Constitution was ratifi ed in 1788. Today, confederalism is an organizational mode found in some international organizations in which individual states are members, but it has not proven a very popular and durable means of organizing states themselves.38

However states organize themselves, they profoundly infl uence the lives of citizens. Whether travel is open or restricted, certain drugs are legal or illegal, military service is required or optional, public prayer in schools is sanctioned or disallowed, and race and ethnicity are relevant or irrelevant in university admissions, these and similarly important questions are decided by the rules administered through unitary, federal, or confederal states in the form of laws, policies, regulations, and orders. Moreover, whether you favor or oppose the present level of state power, that power has most likely affected practically every aspect of your life. If you live in the United States, for example, that power has been used to subsidize your education if you have ever attended a public school or used the resources in a public library. It has been used to subsidize your ability to travel inside the country if you have ever used public highways with public traffi c lights and kept passable by public maintenance crews and public police offi cers. It has been used to subsidize your health and well-being if you have ever used the services of a doctor trained at a public medical school or purchased domestically produced goods and services made in conformity with consumer safety laws, or if you have ever traveled on domestic airlines subject to aviation safety guidelines. It has been used to subsidize your family’s budget if you have a parent who was educated with the help of the G.I. Bill, or if your family has been compensated through farm subsidy programs or social welfare policies. Extraction, rule making, and security are not, on refl ection, merely abstractions, but are, rather, ways in which states touch our lives personally and continuously.

STATES: STATE FORMATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND CHANGE

The United States and more than 190 other states comprise the international community. Many of the world’s existing states are new. In fact, fewer than 30 states now in existence were independent states possessing their own governing systems over a unifi ed territory in 1800. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and many other Latin American countries established self-governing states in the nineteenth century

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Debates in the Study of States 61

after gaining independence from Spain and Portugal. After World War II, many new states (whose populations and territories were previously under the jurisdiction of separate colonial states) were created in Africa and Asia. For example, Madagascar, a long-time colony of France, became an independent state in 1960, the same year in which Nigeria gained independence from Britain. The disintegration of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia resulted in the formation of more than 20 new states within the regions previously occupied by only three.39

As you can see from these examples, states come and go. In addition, even the oldest of existing states evolve and undergo remarkable changes. Turkey, for example, was previously known as the Ottoman Empire and governed a vast region, including the territories now occupied by Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. After defeat in World War I, its territory shrank and its state organization was transformed from a sultanate to a republic. Japan’s state has evolved through transformations from administration by shoguns (military elites), rule by a divine emperor, and, since 1947, government through constitutional democracy. Germany, established as an independent and unifi ed state in 1871, has been an empire, a democracy, a Nazi totalitarian regime, a territory divided into rival states of democracy and communism, and a unifi ed democratic state again all in slightly more than 100 years.

The history of U.S. development as a state has been, similarly, a narrative of dramatic changes in organization and jurisdiction. Since its establishment as an independent state in the late eighteenth century, the U.S. state has been confronted by a civil war in which much of the population rejected the power of the U.S. state altogether, in which approximately one-third of all free adult males were mobilized to fi ght, and in which more than 600,000 people died. The U.S. state has experienced violent opposition manifest in the assassinations of four heads of state since 1865 and the attempted assassinations of others, including former presidents Truman, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. In addition, the United States has radically enlarged its original territory of 13 states to include 50 states plus the District of Columbia. It has also evolved from a relatively limited state apparatus with meager funds into a state that by the time of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s had grown so much that it was spending $1 million per hour.40 All this has happened in just over 200 years of state development. As noted in the Introduction, change seems to be the essence of politics.

DEBATES IN THE STUDY OF STATES

Are States the Most Important Agents of Political Decision Making?

Although states claim ultimate power to make rules and provide security in a territory, they have major nonstate rivals with which to contend. The attack of 9/11 demonstrated the ability of a terrorist network to violate state security, and the international drug trade reveals the capacity of criminal groups to establish illicit markets that crisscross state boundaries. Beyond these examples, state power may be limited by the actions of nonstate organizations, such as multinational corporations (MNCs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). Although MNCs, NGOs, and IGOs have not replaced states or

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taken away the power of states to govern their territories, these entities have emerged as organizations affecting the context in which states pursue power. In some cases, these organizations have limited the ability of states to be the sole decision makers on matters pertaining to their own territories.

Multinational corporations are international businesses with operations, transactions, and assets in the territories of different states. Some MNCs are richer than some countries, as noted in the Introduction. This gives MNCs the potential to amass enormous resources in support of their objectives. Indeed, the key markets of some MNCs constitute a larger geographic territory than the territories of history’s greatest empires.41 MNCs also have the ability to transport money, jobs, personnel, research expertise, and corporate products from one country to another. This mobility gives MNCs the power to leave the territory of a state whose taxation or labor policies, for example, it fi nds unattractive and relocate its operations to another state. Wal-Mart and Sears can move (and have moved) shirt-making jobs to Bangladesh,

A monument to victims of violence outside the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva Switzerland. Founded in 1863, the ICRC is a nongovernmental organization that describes itself as a neutral entity engaged in providing humanitarian aid to victims of conflict. In recent years, the ICRC has provided aid in Gaza, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Colombia, and numerous other regions. In Afghanistan, for instance, the ICRC has been particularly active in drawing attention to the vulnerability of civilian populations to homemade bombs left in areas thought to have been secured by Afghan and international military forces. The ICRC has also monitored conditions at detention facilities in the country.

SOURCE: See ICRC, “Afghanistan: Homemade bombs and improvised mines kill and maim civilians in South,” April 2010, at http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/afghanistan-update-140410?opendocument (accessed 22 April 2010).

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http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/


where employees work 60-hour weeks for less than $30 per month.42 Sony has transferred jobs from Japanese workers to Thai and Malaysian employees, who work for even less.43 In these and other ways, states can lose jobs, technology, know-how, and taxable assets; they can see the resources within their territories diminished by the decisions of MNCs.

This fact of transportability has led some observers to suggest that states are hindered in their ability to govern their own economies. States may fi nd it diffi cult to make policies if they anticipate objections from MNCs. For example, if a policy would be supportive of the public interest, but not supportive of the MNC, what is a state to do?44

Moreover, an MNC with a home base in one country may sometimes negotiate directly with foreign states in a manner inconsistent with the foreign policy aims of its home country. The MNC may go on to develop a “foreign policy” of its own against that of its home state. This happened with oil companies during the U.S.–Libya confl ict in the 1980s, a confl ict that escalated to such an extent that the United States bombed Libya. During this confl ict, while U.S. intelligence forces were pinpointing Libya as a source of support for international terrorism, U.S.-based multinational oil companies lobbied the U.S. government in support of Libya and against U.S. policies calling for the removal of U.S. oil personnel from Libya.45 The MNCs had interests in opposition to those of the U.S. state and worked to alter U.S. foreign relations with Libya because the MNCs had business interests in Libya. Instances such as these raise the intriguing question “Who is in control, the state or the MNC?”

Nongovernmental organizations are nonstate, voluntary groups that pursue political objectives. Like MNCs, they may exercise power you would usually assume to be associated with states. Specifi cally, NGOs have emerged as important agents in the area of international confl ict resolution. Increasingly, a confl ict within or between states may be negotiated and resolved not only through the efforts of states but also through the infl uence of NGOs. NGOs have existed since the nineteenth century, but their numbers and their range of infl uence increased in the twentieth century. Examples of NGOs include the Red Cross, the International Chamber of Commerce, the American Friends Service Committee, the Lutheran World Federation, Doctors without Borders, Space Media Network, and the International Negotiation Network. NGOs have been participants in confl ict resolution in the Middle East in 1955 and 1967, in Germany in the 1960s, in the India–Pakistan war in 1965, in Guatemala in 1990, and in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. In addition, NGOs have helped publicize environmental destruction in the former USSR (Soviet Union) at a time when the Soviet state was trying to hide such damage, and NGOs have helped publicize human rights abuses in El Salvador during periods in which the Salvadoran state was denying the existence of such abuses. These examples illustrate how the activities of NGOs can make it diffi cult for states to articulate rules regulating access to information, and how NGOs have entered the arena of confl ict resolution so that the job of providing security over a territory is not a power states can necessarily monopolize.46

NGOs can also shape political processes within the territories of states by exerting direct pressures on MNCs. That is, rather than prevailing on states to regulate MNCs, NGOs may try to infl uence MNCs through direct contact. Three examples illustrate this type of NGO–MNC interaction. First, a number of environmental NGOs (for example, Environmental Defense Fund, Earth Action Network, and Kids against

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Pollution) pressured McDonald’s to make its food packaging more environmentally friendly. Tactics included a “send back” movement, in which consumers mailed used McDonald’s wrappers and boxes to corporate headquarters. Second, the Public Interest Research Group and other NGOs pressured Uniroyal Chemical Company to stop making Alar, a chemical used by apple growers. Third, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and other NGOs organized campaigns against StarKist and Chicken of the Sea tuna companies for harvesting tuna with drift nets. These nets capture dolphins as well as tuna. What stands out about these three cases is the success of NGOs in shaping corporate policy and practice. In all three instances, NGOs successfully pressured MNCs to change policies affecting the citizens of states. In other words, citizens could thank NGOs for doing what they might traditionally have regarded as the job of the presumably more infl uential state.47

Intergovernmental organizations are political organizations in which membership is held exclusively by states. The United Nations (UN), the Organization of American States (OAS), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the UN Conferences on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) are examples of IGOs. IGOs may have a signifi cant impact on political relations between states. Like NGOs, IGOs may become vital participants in confl ict resolution, as was the case when UN forces imposed sanctions over and committed troops during the Gulf War of 1991. IGOs may also work in conjunction with states to resolve particular problems. For instance, since sponsoring the fi rst international conference on AIDS in 1983, the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) has assisted states in tracking HIV/AIDS infections and in developing research and public health programs.48 Through these efforts, WHO has helped publicize the related problem of a resurgence in tuberculosis (TB) cases worldwide. In fact, WHO has pointed out that the number of TB deaths in 1995 exceeded the number of such deaths in any previous year; HIV-positive individuals are particularly susceptible to TB. WHO has assisted the states of China, Peru, and the United Republic of Tanzania in implementing effective TB treatment programs.49 IGOs often work in cooperation with NGOs as well as states, which further indicates the extent to which states are joined by nonstate entities in making critical decisions over their own territories, as is explored further later in this text.

Does Political Science Consider the Exercise of Power by States to Be Different from the Exercise of Power by Individuals or Groups?

You may view the exercise of power over your life differently, depending on whether that power is emanating from a state or from another person. Many political scientists would agree with you. Two terms—sovereignty and legitimacy—are often used to analyze state power. States that possess both sovereignty and legitimacy are generally viewed by political scientists as having a type of power different from that held by mere individuals and groups because such states are viewed as appropriate wielders of ultimate power.

Sovereignty has traditionally been understood as the attribute states have when they, in actuality, carry out the tasks of providing security, extraction, and rule making. That is, technically a state can exist (the offi ces can exist), but the state may or may not be effective in carrying out its tasks; in this case, we would say a state is present, but it lacks sovereignty (the ability to actually carry out the tasks of providing security

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and so on). A state unable to exercise sovereignty is sometimes referred to as a failed state. For example, the Obama and Bush administrations have made the argument in favor of continued U.S. military involvement in Iraq—in spite of declining popular support for the war—by asserting that removing of U.S. troops precipitously could create conditions for a future failed state in Iraq, that is, an Iraqi state too weak to maintain law, order, and security for its citizens. A failed state can serve as a launching ground for terrorist groups, as has been the case with the failed or almost-failed state of Yeman, according to some political scientists.50 Insofar as states claim for themselves the ultimate power over a territory (and thus claim that individuals and groups can exercise power in that territory only as long as they do not contradict state power), states claim sovereignty for themselves and deny it to individuals and groups within their territories. Later in this text, we will see that globalization calls into question this traditional understanding of sovereignty, insofar as global exchanges of ideas, products, services, and people raise the possibility of rendering territoriality porous and penetrable and thus uncontrollable. Legitimacy is the attribute states possess when their citizens view their sovereignty as appropriate, proper, or acceptable. Consider the civil war in the United States: Southern leaders who joined the Confederacy were denying the legitimacy (appropriateness) of the sovereignty (actual governing ability) of the U.S. government. Such leaders asserted that the Confederate government was the legitimate sovereign over Southern territories.

Just as disputes over sovereignty and legitimacy plunged the United States into a civil war within the fi rst 100 years of its existence, so have such disputes threatened stability in a number of newly independent African states. Indeed, in sub-Saharan Africa, many states are former colonies that have achieved independence only since World War II. In some of these states, legitimacy and sovereignty have been very problematic, as evidenced by civil confl icts and/or wars in Sudan, Rwanda, Zaire, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, Burundi, Chad, Uganda, Nigeria, and Angola between 1956 and 1982.51 Military coups and ethnic violence in these societies have attested to the limited legitimacy accorded to the state and, not surprisingly, to the lack of sovereignty on the part of the state, in such instances, for commanding loyalty and obedience to law within its territory.52

Does Culture Shape the Decisions of States?

A number of political scientists regard culture—defi ned as values, ideas, beliefs, and/or attitudes held in common by a population—as a potentially crucial agent shaping state policies.53 The potential impact of culture can be analyzed from a variety of perspectives, including those that examine the culture of (1) citizens in general and (2) decision makers within government. With respect to the fi rst perspective, Robert Putnam has suggested that the presence or absence of widespread cultural support for popular participation and deliberation among the citizens of a country can affect that country’s prospects for realizing both democracy and effective governmental institutions.54

Social scientist Ronald Inglehart has also suggested that the cultural dispositions of citizens can mold the types of policies citizens expect from their government and can thereby shape the decisions of states. Inglehart’s work has put forward the thesis that the post–World War II period has been a time of

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cultural transformation within many industrialized countries. As these countries experienced increasing levels of economic prosperity, they likewise began to experience a movement away from materialist culture and toward postmaterialist culture. Inglehart describes this shift in the following terms: Younger citizens in advanced, economically prosperous countries began to displace older citizens whose formative years were spent under conditions of relative economic austerity. Compared to their elders, younger citizens have been inclined to take economic well-being for granted and have thus exhibited signs of postmaterialist cultural values. Broadly speaking, postmaterialist culture often tends to rank highly values such as emotional and psychological fulfi llment, diverse opportunities for self-expression, and personal exploration with nontraditional life choices; by contrast, materialist culture places great emphasis on the achievement of economic security. Given their different cultural orientations, postmaterialists and materialists are likely to disagree on what they want from government. If choices are framed, for example, between (1) wilderness protection and (2) road construction to promote job creation, or between choosing a candidate on the basis of (1) social equality issues or (2) economic policy, postmaterialists and materialists are likely to make different choices. In these instances, postmaterialists can be expected to support policies ranging from environmental protection to women’s rights to a degree unprecedented among their materialist counterparts.55

If Putnam, Inglehart, and other social scientists working from this perspective are correct, mass-based, citizen-level culture provides an important context for understanding state policy. However, the culture of offi cial governmental decision makers may also be important in shaping governmental decisions. For example, studies of government policy making during World War II have suggested that crucial military decisions were often shaped by the values, attitudes, and ideas of key security personnel. Consider the fact that Nazi Germany possessed chemical weaponry from the beginning of the fi ghting but opted against this form of warfare. What accounts for this seemingly restrained policy? Nazi military offi cials held to an organizational military culture that valued blitzkrieg offensive maneuvers. During World War II, Britain “underused” its submarine capacity, a decision that has been linked to the Royal Navy’s culture, which valued battleships over submarines as primary instruments of naval warfare.56 More recently, according to some studies of elite-level culture in the 1990s, Germany’s decisions to build European security alliances and to participate in NATO operations in Bosnia have been shaped by a pronounced multilateralism component in Germany’s post–World War II culture.57

Despite the evidence offered in the preceding studies, cultural explanations leave some political scientists unconvinced. Many critics question whether culture is not as much infl uenced by governmental policy and/or social conditions as it is an infl uence on them. In addition, critics point out that cultures may be more complex and less homogeneous than some cultural explanations imply. What if cultures have contradictory values? If cultures include internally inconsistent and opposed values, ideas, and attitudes, can’t culture be employed as a variable to explain the opposite of the outcome it is said to explain as well as the outcome itself? Moreover, if culture itself is shaped by economic class, race, ethnicity, social standing, or other variables, should not these more basic infl uences be the focus of scrutiny?58

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Are States Likely to Decline and Be Replaced by Some Other Form of Political Organization?

So far, our discussion has shown that even powerful states have rivals to their sovereignty in the form of MNCs, IGOs, and NGOs, just as newly independent states may see their sovereignty challenged by groups viewing the state as lacking legitimacy. Potentially, therefore, states are subject to forces threatening to weaken them. What if such forces are multiplying in number and intensity? This question is posed by a number of political scientists in the subfi eld of international relations. James Rosenau has argued that fi ve forces have converged to threaten the state’s existence as an organizational entity: (1) technological development that enhances communications and interactions across state territories; (2) global problems (AIDS, global warming, and terrorism) that make states vulnerable because states cannot keep the problems from penetrating their borders; (3) citizens’ tendencies to look to entities other than states for information, leadership, and ethical guidance; (4) strengthening of the resources and appeals of groups within a state’s borders, given the inability of states to keep groups from obtaining information resources; and (5) increasing know-how on the part of citizens to analyze and resist state authority.

If Rosenau’s observations are correct, we are faced with an astounding possibility—that states may no longer be capable of being sovereign entities regarding much of anything within their territories. In a world in which between 5 and 10 billion telephone calls are made daily, and in which 600 million television sets and more than 1.5 billion radios are turned on, how could borders not become completely permeable and thus increasingly ungovernable?59 Is any entity suffi ciently sovereign over you so that were you to take a break from reading this book and go to a computer and access the Internet, it could stop you from communicating and sharing information with someone in virtually any place on the globe? You can communicate via Twitter, e-mail, Facebook, or phone; you can observe practically any part of the world through YouTube or television. You have so much technological know-how at your command that you possess arguably a greater basis for autonomous opinion formation and decision making than members of any previous generation. If you are so very sovereign over your life, how can any state be sovereign over you?60 Yet if individuals can so easily access information-rich technologies, so can states, and will this not enhance state

Concept Summary

Box 3.6 NATIONS: DEFINITION AND CHARACTERISTICS

• A nation is a group with a sense of unity, and the unity is generally related to the fact that members of the group share a common language, culture, history, ethnicity, and/or religion.

• Nations may or may not have their own states.• More than one nation may exist within a state’s boundaries, in which case

the state is known as a multinational state.

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authority in the long run? Will states not, for example, be able to more fully regulate individual and group transactions with the new technologies discussed by Rosenau? These are among the intriguing questions in political science’s study of states.

NATIONS

Nations are sometimes confused with states. However, the two entities are very different.61 A nation is a group of people with a sense of unity based on the importance the group attributes to a shared trait, or custom. A common language, religion, ethnicity, race, and/or culture are often the foundations of national identity. Indeed, the very origins of the word nation attest to such foundations because nation is based on the older Latin word natus (birth), and nations generally consist of people whose sense of unity is based on something shared by virtue of the group into which they are born.62 It is important to note, however, that not every group into which one is born becomes the basis of a nation; if, for example, you are born into the group of right-handed people, most probably you do not feel a sense of national oneness based on this shared attribute. However, if you are by birth a member of the group of Cherokees, Jews, Lithuanians, Armenians, Serbs, or Croats, you may indeed feel a sense of national unity based on the attributes shared with others born into your “natus-group.”63 A nation arises when signifi cance is attached to that which the group shares and around which a feeling of unity develops.

STATES AND NATIONS: RELATIONS AND INTERACTIONS

Nations may or may not possess their own states. National identity, or nationalism, may precede the emergence of a nation’s state. Zionism (Jewish nationalism) and a community of people identifying with a Jewish nation, for example, existed before the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Zionist arguments were advanced through the works of nationalist leaders such as Theodor Herzl (1860–1904), Chaim Wiezmann (1874–1952), and Israel Zangwill (1864–1926). The efforts of these and other pre-1948 Zionist leaders attest to the importance of maintaining the distinction between nations and states. Nations may be growing and defi ning themselves as such long before they gain their own states.64

Moreover, national identity may exist even though a nation lives within the territory of a separate state rather than within the borders of a state conforming to the nation. This describes the historical situation of many French residents in the Canadian province of Quebec, according to their recent nationalist leaders. Many French-Canadians feel a sense of national identity based on a shared language and culture. Nationalist pressures prompted the passage of the Charter of the French Language (1977), which made French the offi cial language of Quebec. Nationalist sentiment culminated in demands for the separation of Quebec from the state of Canada and the creation of a sovereign Quebec republic. In 1980, nationalists tried but failed to win separation from Canada by means of a referendum. In 1994, Jacques Parizeau was elected premier of Quebec, in part because of his promise to support another referendum calling for Quebec’s separation and independence. The referendum, held in October 1995, failed to pass by the slimmest of margins (50.56 percent of voters opposed the separation and 49.44 percent supported separation). For now, the French-Canadian nation exists without its own sovereign state (an independent Quebec) and within the territory of a separate sovereign state (Canada).65

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are some forms of power unethical? if power is so

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